One hundred years ago, Victoria city council looked to the ocean waters surrounding the city to solve a problem that was threatening its reputation as the "picturesque portal of the Pacific."
It was spring 1908 and Victoria was in the midst of a tourist boom. The Empress Hotel had just opened its doors to visitors attracted by Vancouver Island's growing reputation for possessing some of the most impressive, unspoiled natural beauty in the world.
Capturing the spirit of the period, the Daily Times ran a special 76-page "Isle of Dreams" edition at the beginning of May, describing how richly endowed the Island was with resources and attractive scenery.
"Persons of poetic temperament have been inspired by the witcheries of our Island climate. They have descended or ascended into ecstasies over the marvels of our scenic environments, over the charms of landscape and seascape. ... In fact, from the things that have been written, one would almost reach the conclusion that the abode of the muses has been transferred from the sunny southern climate of Europe to the sweet "Isle o' Dreams" resting upon the bosom of the waters of the Pacific," wrote the Times.
While people marvelled at Victoria's natural wonders, the city faced a significant man-made problem: garbage. It was building up everywhere.
Litter was becoming such a problem on downtown streets that the British Colonist wrote:
"The city council would act wisely if it would provide receptacles at short intervals along the principal streets into which paper, the skins of fruit and other refuse could be thrown by pedestrians. ... In a very little while, people would get in the way of using them and the result would be that the streets would be a great deal cleaner."
But the larger problem for the city was what to do with all the garbage once it was collected.
In 1908, Victoria's roughly 40,000 people produced around 50 tons of garbage a day and there was no long-term plan for how to dispose of it. (Today 340,000 people produce roughly 385 tonnes a day.)
During civic elections held in January 1908, voters passed a bylaw authorizing the raising of $54,000 to build an incinerator plant that could handle the city's waste. However, given the project's steep cost and the city's limited financial resources, council appointed a committee to investigate other options.
After looking into the issue for many months, the committee presented its findings to councillors who unanimously adopted all recommendations.
The committee found that an incinerator was far too expensive to operate and the costs to upgrade the facility -- should it needed , at some future point, to meet increased demand --would be exorbitant. Furthermore, no community in Victoria was willing to have the incinerator located anywhere near its neighbourhood.
And so, city council decided that the most suitable method for garbage disposal was simply to dump it in the ocean.
Council passed resolutions to build two wharves -- one in James Bay and another in Victoria West - where people would take their garbage. It would be loaded on a giant scow or barge, and then pulled out to a deep area of the ocean known as Brotchie's ledge "where there could be no chance of it becoming a nuisance."
The dumping option would not only cost a fraction of what an incinerator would (a barge would cost roughly $2,000), but it was also more flexible. Whereas an incinerator "could handle only a certain amount of garbage daily, [dumping] was elastic. ... A tug could tow once or oftener as required."
The British Colonist enthusiastically endorsed the plan and lauded councillors for their foresight.
"We recall seeing in a Seattle paper the other day something which suggests that the incinerator is not quite the success it is reputed to be. An investigation at the Sound city disclosed the fact that much of the material which passed through the incinerator was hardly charred.
"It would thus seem that the council has acted wisely in displaying caution before embarking upon an enterprise which might prove a failure. The scow system will prove much less costly, and it should be given a further trial as an expedient until the value of the incinerator has been established beyond doubt."
